A person using a hand-held spray gun to individually spray articles of the aforesaid type must either move the spray gun about the articles or move the articles relative to the spray gun. Either procedure is time consuming, and the latter procedure, if manually performed, can also result in marring of a previously sprayed surface as the article is repositioned for spraying of other of its surfaces. The foregoing problems are compounded when a relatively large number of such articles are to be sprayed.
It has been recognized that it would be advantageous to automate the spraying procedure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,342,375 discloses an apparatus for applying decoration to cylindrical objects, such as bottles and the like, by positioning the bottles on a turntable and moving the same past a spray gun for applying the decoration thereto. Disc-shaped targets are moved along a conveyor and past a spray gun to apply a coating thereto in U.S. Pat. No. 2,781,020. U.S. Pat. No. 2,808,343 discloses a spraying apparatus in which the articles are transported in semicircular paths of travel around first and second spraying devices to coat all surfaces of the articles as they are moved by the spraying devices. U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,369 discloses an apparatus for spraying glue on the outer peripheral surfaces of stacked paper discs which rotate while the glue is sprayed thereon.
These prior art spraying devices are complicated and expensive to produce. These devices also require that the operation of the spray gun be coordinated with the movement of the articles past the spray gun.